Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies Hosts Conference on Forgiveness

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (08/23/2011)(readMedia)-- Elizabethtown College's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies will host a one-day conference Thursday, Sept. 22, focusing on the topic of forgiveness. Using the fifth anniversary of the Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse shooting as a springboard for the event, scholars, authors and practitioners will offer insights into the process and power of forgiveness in daily life. The conference includes two major addresses and five seminar options as well as a free evening session open to non-attendees of the conference at 7:30 p.m.

The conference will tackle questions such as "How do forgiveness, pardon and reconciliation differ?" and "How does forgiveness relate to justice?" Donald B. Kraybill, senior fellow at the Young Center, will give the opening address, "Forgiveness in the Face of Tragedy: Five-Year Lessons." The keynote address, presented by L. Gregory Jones, senior strategist and professor of theology at Duke Divinity School, follows. Other speakers and seminar leaders include Linda Crockett, Terri Roberts, Steven M. Nolt, Frank Stalfa, Maria Erling, and David Weaver-Zercher. Seminar topics include forgiveness in the face of sexual abuse and domestic violence and the Lutheran-Mennonite reconciliation in 2010.

To register and for a conference brochure, visit www.etown.edu/forgiveness2011. The early registration fee is $45 and due by Aug. 30. The standard registration fee is $55 and due by Sept. 8. Contact the Young Center at 717-361-1470 with questions or for more information.

Elizabethtown College, in south-central Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Through personal attention, creative inspiration and academic challenge, Elizabethtown College students are encouraged to expand their intellectual curiosity and are given the opportunity to become a bigger part of the world through experiential learning-research, internships and study abroad. Elizabethtown College's overall commitment to Educate for Service is fulfilled as students are taught intellectually, socially, aesthetically and ethically for lives of service and leadership.

Visit www.etown.edu for more information about Elizabethtown College.